Laminate housing for electrical contacts or the like



April 15, 1969 s. LIGHTNER ITAL 3,439,314

LAMINATE HOUSING FOR ELECTRICAL CONTACTS OR THE LIKE Sheet Filed Jan. 19, 1967 April 15, 1969 L. s. LIGHTNER ETAL 3,439,314 I I LAMINATE nousmc- FOR ELECTRICAL CONTACTS OR THE LIKE Filedaan. 19, 1 567 Sheet z of 3.

April 1969 s. LIGHTNER ETAL 3,439,314

LAMINATE HOUSING FOR ELECTRICAL CONTACTS OR THE LIKE Sheet Filed Jan. 19, 1967 United States Patent 3,439,314 LAMINATE HOUSING FOR ELECTRICAL CONTACTS OR THE LIKE Linn Stephen Lightner, Camp Hill, and Benny Morris Bennett and John Carl Asick, Harrisburg, Pa., assignors to AMP Incorporated, Harrisburg, Pa.

Filed Jan. 19, 1967, Ser. No. 610,394 Int. Cl. Hfllr 13/50, 9/08 US. Cl. 339208 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A housing comprising plural layers of housing section. Each section is maintained in proper position, and the entire housing is maintained assembled, by a resilient member which engages the individual layers of the housing.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the invention Insulating housings for the positioning and maintaining electrical contacts, and housings having multiple apertures for retaining multiple articles of manufacture.

Description of the prior art Prior art housings may be a single piece or plural pieces. The single piece housings are difiicult to manufacture, the molds are extremely expensive, and product reliability is low. The plural piece housings have problems due to tolerance buildup since no effective means has hitherto been used for assembling the plural layers in proper position.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURE 1 is an overall perspective view of a laminate housing made in accordance with the teachings of the present invention;

FIGURE 2 is a fragmentary perspective view of the contact-receiving portion of the housing;

FIGURE 3 is a cross-sectional view showing the various laminates in spaced relation; and

FIGURE 4 is a perspective view of the member which holds the housing of FIGURE 1 in assembled condition.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The attainments of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the drawings in which there is shown and described an illustrative embodiment of the invention; it is to be understood, however, that this embodiment is not intended to be exhaustive nor limiting of the invention but is given for purpose of illustration in order that others skilled in the art may full understand the invention and the principles thereof and the manner of applying it in practical use so that they may modify it in various forms,

each as may be best suited to the conditions of a particular use.

In FIGURE 1 there is shown an insulating housing 10 made in accordance with the teachings of the present invention. The housing 10 is formed as a laminated structure from a plurality of housing sections. The housing is formed by a top section 12, a bottom section 14, and a plurality of identical intermediate sections 16. The number of sections 16 used is dependent upon the overall size of the housing desired.

In assembled form the housing provides a plurality of apertures 18 for receiving electrical contacts or the like 20 (see FIGURE 2). The contacts 20 normally mate with an array of male contacts fixed to a printed circuit board or the like. Therefore the contacts 20 must be properly oriented relative to each other in order to achieve proper mating. Due to the laminar configuration of the housing 10 there is the problem of tolerance buildup between individual layers. Any appreciable buildup of tolerances would destroy the relationship between associated electrical contacts. It is the avoidance of this problem to which the present invention is primarily directed.

Turning now to FIGURE 2 it can be seen that the aperture 18 is of a configuration to receive the contact 20 in a pluggable manner. The contact 20 is provided with a spring lance 22 which cooperates with a shoulder 24 disposed along the aperture 18 for preventing accidental withdrawal of the contact 20 from the housing. Stop shoulders 26 are provided for limiting the insertion of the contacts into the housing. The forward edge of aperture 18 is chamfered as at 28 to provide for proper lead-in of the mating contact.

A slot 30 is provided in each of the housing sections 16, the slot communicating with the apertures 18 and accommodating a removal tool such as partially shown at 32. The tool 32 may be inserted into the slot 30 for depressing the spring lance 22 on the contacts to thereby permit removal of the contacts from the housing. Each of the housing sections 12, 14 and 16 are provided with passageways 34, 36 and 38 respectively disposed at opposite ends of the housing sections. The passageways 36 and 38 are provided with shoulders 40 for a purpose to be described.

The various housing sections are held in their assembled position by a resilient member 42 best seen in FIGURES 3 and 4. The member 42 has a pair of generally parallel leg portions 44 joined at their opposite ends by a strap 46. The strap and leg portions form an N-shaped figure. Upon entry of the member 42 into the passageway of the housing 10 the leg portions 44 will be forced to move toward each other so that the flanges 48 disposed at the end of the leg portions can be accommodated within the passageways. Once member 42 is fully inserted into the housing the flanges will be positioned outside of the top and bottom housing layers to thereby release the resilient member to its normal position as shown in FIGURE 4. In this position the flanges operate to maintain the entire unit in the assembled position. Also the leg portions 44 are provided with a plurality of regularly spaced detents 50, each detent serving to mate with the shoulders 40 located in the housing passageway. The cooperation between the detents and the shoulders serves to accurately position each layer of the housing to thereby insure proper relation between the various housing apertures. As seen in FIGURE. 3 there is a slight separation between housing layers, this separation being maintained by the detents 50. Separation between layers occurs when the layers are slightly minimum of tolerance. If the layers were maximum of tolerance there would be no space between layers but the various layers would still be maintained in proper position. The length of member 42 and the number of detents 50 positioned therealong is dependent upon the size of housing desired and the number of layers to be employed.

Changes in construction will occur to those skilled in the art and various apparently different modifications and embodiments may be made without departing from the scope of the invention. The matter set forth in the foregOing description and accompanying drawings is ofiered by way of illustration only.

What is claimed is:

1. A device for maintaining a plurality of articles in assembled position, said device comprising a pair of generally parallel leg portions, each said leg portion having a first end and a second end, said first and second ends of one leg portion lying opposite said first and second ends respectively of the other leg portion, and strap means for holding said leg portions in general parallelism while permitting said leg portions to move toward and away from each other, said strap means extending between a said first end of one leg portion and a said second end of the other leg portion to form a generally N-shaped member, and a plurality of detents regularly spaced along each said leg portion for contacting said plurality of articles.

2. A device as set forth in claim 1 wherein the spacing between adjacent detents is equal to the desired spacing between the articles to be assembled.

3. A device as set forth in claim 1 further comprising flange means disposed at said first and second ends of said leg portions.

4. A housing for electrical contacts or similar articles comprising a plurality of housing sections cooperable to form a laminated structure, each said section having a passageway extending therethrough, said passageways being in alignment when said sections are in assembled position, shoulder means disposed on each said section within said passageway, and resilient means extending through said passageways and engaging said shoulder means for maintaining said sections in assembled position, said resilient means comprising a generally N-shaped member having detents thereon for engaging said shoulder means, said detents being spaced apart a distance equal to the desired spacing between adjacent housing sections.

5. A housing as set forth in claim 4 wherein the spacing between adjacent ones of said detents is greater than the width of said housing sections whereby said sections are maintained in spaced apart relation.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS FOREIGN PATENTS 7/1964 Netherlands.

RICHARD E. MOORE, Primalry Examiner.

US. Cl. X.R. 

